Nov062018

Google Ads Improves Search Ad position Metrics With Four New Insights

To provide advertisers with better insights into where their ads are appearing on the Google Search results page, Google Ads is introducing four new metrics.

The currently available search ad position metrics as Google Ads explains does not offer a clear information. For example, “average position does not indicate where an ad appears on the search results page, contrary to the common perception.”

Instead, the average position metric describes the order that an ad appears versus other ads in the ad auction.

Therefore, the ad with an average position of 1 does not mean, that the ad always shows at the top of the page above the organic results. However, it indicates the ad will appear before all other ads in the slot.

In some case, the ad with a position of 1 may actually be shown at the bottom of the page.

“For example, knowing if your ad shows more (or less) often at the very top of the results can help you diagnose significant changes in clickthrough rate. And knowing what percentage of eligible top impressions you are already capturing helps you determine if you should do more to increase your bids and quality.”

Unlike average position, the new metrics Google Ads is introducing are designed to give clear insights on where ads are shown on the search results page:

New search ad position metrics include:

Impr. (Absolute Top) % – the percent of ad impressions shown as the very first ad above organic search results.

Search (Absolute Top) IS – the impressions received in absolute top location divided by the estimated number of impressions that were eligible to be received in the top location.

Search (Top) IS – the impressions received in the top location (anywhere above the organic search results) compared to the estimated number of impressions that were eligible to receive in the top location.

Those with a goal to bid to a page location, are advised to use Search (Abs Top) IS and Search (Top) IS instead. Because these two metrics indicate an opportunity to show ads in more prominent positions.

These metrics will get incorporated in to “automated bidding” in Google Ads, says Google. But, no time frame is given.

In other related news, Google has updated its Google Ads add-on in Google Sheets with some useful features on users feedback.

The data in sheets now automatically gets updated with a new option that allows to schedule when sheets will be updated.

This ability eliminates the manual click on “update” as it now let schedule reports to run daily, weekly or monthly.

Additionally, Google is adding more report types available through the add-on, including:

Get Latest News

Deepak Gupta is a IT & Web Consultant. He is the founder and CEO of diTii.com & DIT Technologies, where he's engaged in providing Technology Consultancy, Design and Development of Desktop, Web and Mobile applications using various tools and softwares. Sign-up for the Email for daily updates. Google+ Profile.